


Initial Report

by Scorpio71



Series: Wrong Side of Heaven [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Losers (2010)
Genre: AIM - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, POV Tony Stark, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scorpio71/pseuds/Scorpio71
Summary: Sam reports Bucky's findings during his most recent recon as well as the research that he and JARVIS have done. Mysteries are revealed, pasts come back to haunt people, and emotional landmines are almost (but not actually) avoided.





	

****

INITIAL REPORT

“Tony.”

Tony pulled his head partway out of the Iron Man armor’s guts and looked over at the holographic screen hanging in midair. Steve Roger’s face was grimacing back at him with an expression that Tony has long since learned to translate as ‘I’m experiencing emotions that I’m trying hard to ignore and pretend don’t exist so please don’t point them out and ask me to explain them’. Tony was an immature and emotionally stunted asshole, so he was equally at ease ignoring a teammate’s breakdown or poking it with a stick. He was a bit busy today, so opted to ignore the fact that Steve looked like he might actually cry.

“Hey Cap!” Tony gestured to the Mark VII hanging in pieces around him, “I’ve been playing around with the filtration system and made a huge breakthrough.” Tony spread his arms wide to demonstrate how big. “I mean, it’s seriously big! Bigger! Biggest!”

“Tony.”

Tony nodded and pointed at the holographic screen, “Right. Yes. Anyway, if the tests pan out like I think they will, I’ll work on adapting it down into smaller portable units for the rest of the team. It should not only filter out the regular dust and debris from normal building damage but also any toxins or gaseous poisons that may or may not get released into the air. Also, I think with enough work it could be very marketable. I’m sure that SHIELD, the military, and emergency services would love a smaller and more efficient mask filter and rebreather for their people.”

“Tony!”

Tony flinched to a halt and blinked at Steve’s image a moment in surprise. “Um…yes?” 

Steve had a hand up and was rubbing a temple in agitation…which was better than bursting into tears so three points to Iron Man. Just because he was an immature emotionally stunted asshole didn’t mean he didn’t care. Finally, with a sigh, Steve lowered his hand and gave him a pointed look.

“While that’s great news about the filter…” Steve waved a hand vaguely in lieu of using modern technical terms he wasn’t sure of, “the reason I’m calling is to let you know that Sam got a field report from Bucky and is calling a team meeting. It’s in half an hour.”

Well, that explained Cap’s girlish decent into feelings and emotions. During the dustup in DC between SHEILD and HYDRA, Steve had somehow partially broken through the Winter Soldier’s mental brainwashing and awoken the long dormant memories and personality of Bucky Barnes. While that was a great step forward, it also didn’t undo or remove the brainwashing and programing he’d undergone. That left the poor shit with two very distinct and diametrically opposed personalities inside his skull. What’s more, various things and people triggered the different and often conflicting identities that comprised the Winter Soldier in unpredictable ways. Cap himself had a 50-50 chance of either triggering Bucky for some sappy reminiscing and nostalgia or triggering the Asset for some incredibly dangerous and destructive violence. 

That left him, as Clint had proclaimed; an unstable hot mess. Tony still wasn’t sure which him Clint meant since they both fit that description in Tony’s opinion.

With the fallout from SHIELD imploding, HYDRA being exposed, and the US Military pissed that the fight happened in the capital city it was determined that the best course of action was for Cap to lay low and out of the spotlight and for Bucky to disappear for a bit. They’d set him up for a sort of roaming banishment from the US by sending him to the various Stark properties around the world. On the books he was being paid to check and upgrade the security systems on those properties, which he did, but he also used them as staging areas and safe-houses for attacking various HYDRA bases, labs, and storage facilities.

Since Sam didn’t trigger any type of response from the guy, good or bad, he acted as the contact point for Bucky keeping in touch and updating them with his progress. He also acted as an unofficial councilor and therapist. For the most part that worked out great, but it made Steve moody and sad that he couldn’t be the one that was Bucky’s contact. It grated on him deeply that he sometimes triggered a killing rage in his oldest and dearest friend.

Tony just nodded and offered a small smile. “Okay. Sure. Uh…” he looked back over his shoulder at his work and frowned. “I’ll just clean up what I’m doing and be right up.”

*

The tower has three entire floors dedicated to official Avengers business. For physical training, there is the weight room, the sparing ring, the gun range, the archery range, the obstacle course, and even a rappelling and climbing wall. For educational pursuits, they have a library, a multimedia lab, flight simulators, and access to excellent trainers in any discipline they could want. There’s several conference rooms, storage rooms, archives, and a high tech holographic interface style Op/Command Center that would put all the rest to shame. 

Also, each Avenger has their own office suite and their own personal assistant. They also have a dedicated set of lawyers, a PR person, a logistics specialist, an IT team, a medical unit, and a quartermaster. They also have a special cleaning crew and maintenance team. The Avengers Support Team, as they call themselves, are all former Shield personnel that has proven to be loyal and not HYDRA. Since the collapse of SHIELD, the Avengers is becoming less a team and more its own independent Agency. 

While Cap may be taking point as leader out in the field and on team missions, Tony is financing this thing and he wants it done right. Since Coulson is dead set on trying to resurrect and redeem the corpse of SHIELD, the only person Tony trusts to run the Avengers is Maria Hill.

It’s because of that that Tony is not surprised when he walks into the main team conference and briefing room to find Maria sitting at the head of the table and Cap down at the foot like Mommy and Daddy bracketing in the kids at the dinner table. He just barely manages to refrain from rolling his eyes and making a rude quip about it. Instead he saunters over and slumps down into the chair left empty for him between Bruce and Rhodey. Glancing around and ignoring the looks he’s getting for being a bit late, he sees that Cap still looks upset and irritated but also that Sam looks worried. Not a real good sign.

“Well,” Maria arches an unimpressed eyebrow in Tony’s direction, “now that we’re all here.” Tony finally loses his inner battle with immaturity and rolls his eyes. Clint snickers at him before getting elbowed in the ribs sharply by Natasha. Maria clears her throat pointedly, “As I was saying, now that we’re all here, Falcon is going to brief us on the latest report from the Winter Soldier.”

All eyes turned to Sam and he cleared his throat before turning a steady and serious gaze on each of them in turn before settling on Cap with a sigh. “This is not gonna be easy to hear man, and I apologize for that in advance.”

“Two days ago I got a call from Bucky saying that there was a complication during a routine scouting and reconnaissance of one of HYDRA’s facilities. When he arrived the base was already under attack by AIM soldiers with a group of their scientists waiting in the wings. Now, I know we generally prefer them to wipe out each other than to have either of them focused on us or SHIELD, but this time Bucky said something…odd happened.”

Tony frowned. “Some new weapon or drone? AIM loves to think up bizarre and deadly toys just as much as HYDRA.”

Clint smirked and leaned over to whisper to Natasha, “Said the kettle about the pot.” She elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to make him grunt while Tony took the mature route and stuck his tongue out at them both. Maria cleared her throat pointedly and their smirks melted into faked seriousness.

Sam arched a judgmental eyebrow, but nodded and said, “Tony’s right, actually. It was a weapon, or at least, that’s how Bucky referred to the guy.”

“The guy?” Steve frowned. “It was a person?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Bucky said that the guy was fighting the HYDRA goons alongside of the AIM soldiers, but he was obviously enhanced.” He gave Steve a pointed look, “Said at first he thought the guy was actually you. It wasn’t until a minute or so later that he could see that it was someone else.”

Everyone tensed up and became very serious all at once. It was Bruce who spoke first though, “Does Bucky think AIM has been experimenting with the Super Soldier serum? Or possibly that they tried to clone Steve?”

Sam held out one hand in a silent bid for patience. “He’s not a clone. I promise. However, he is a super soldier. There’s more, however, so…”

Sam sighed and everyone looked grim. “Bucky reported that he watched the guy fight the HYDRA goons in order to learn more about him and evaluate his fighting style, but apparently the guy realized Bucky was watching because he turned and looked right up at him in his hiding spot. This is where things get weird.”

He waited a beat for everyone’s attention and said, “The guy glowed for Bucky with the mark of a soulmate.”

Steve made a soft sound of pain deep in his throat before sucking in a gasp of air that was very nearly a sob. Everyone had the decency to ignore it and look away for a brief moment so he could compose himself. It wasn’t a secret that Steve and Bucky had been compatible soulmates since childhood. While never lovers, they had seen each other as a mix of best friends and brothers. Sadly, Steve and the Winter Soldier were not compatible…they were deeply opposing soulmates. Although, that would probably change once the Asset could remove the programming that listed Captain America as his greatest enemy. Intellectually, the man knew that was simply old HYDRA programming he didn’t necessarily agree with, but that didn’t stop the programming from taking over when it was triggered.

So, yeah, messy girlish feelings and emotional landmines everywhere.

“Once the fight was over, the AIM scientists came on scene and the ones that engaged the enhanced super soldier called him Experiment 319. They also, according to Bucky, threated 319 with some unspecified punishment if he disobeyed. At that point, 319 was bundled up and taken away.”

“Bucky sent me some photos of the guy and said he was going to try and follow them back to their base of operations. He’s not as familiar with AIM strongholds or procedures though, so it might not work. He asked if we could also search from our end.”

At that point, Sam swiveled his chair around and gestured at the large holographic monitor embedded along the far wall. “JARVIS, could you please display the three image files Bucky sent to me?”

“Of course, Sergeant Wilson. I’d be happy to.” The lights dimmed slightly and three photographs were shown in full HD. One was a shot of a tall muscular blond man in blue camo fighting a bunch of HYDRA soldiers, one was a full body shot of the man standing at parade rest in front of an AIM scientist while an AIM soldier held a gun to his head, and the last was a close-up shot of the man’s face.

Everyone gasped in shock. “Holy shit!” Tony exclaimed, “No wonder Bucky mistook this guy for Cap at first.” Tony turned to look over at Steve’s shell-shocked face. “You two could be brothers.”

Clint and Rhodey nodded in agreement. 

Sam sighed and gestured at the pictures again, “You can see that the guy isn’t an exact copy. However, he’s a close enough match that it bothered me. A lot. So I took my concerns to JARVIS and asked him to help me figure out if this guy ever existed before now. Turns out, he’s a real guy and not some clone.”

The images changed then to two photos, one was of the blond in US Army dress uniform and the other was obviously a team photo in more casual BDU’s.

“Corporal Jacob Jensen was a US Army Delta Forces Tech and Comms Specialist seconded to the Spec Ops team designated Tango Lima.”

Clint made an impressed noise. “The Losers.” He threw a wobbly grin at Steve, “Your stunt double is a goddamn Loser, Cap.”

Steve blinked in mild surprise. “I’ve heard of them…I think. Maybe? A long time ago.”

Rhodey made a face. “Well, I never have. What’s up? And seriously, The Losers?”

Sam and Clint snorted in amusement before Sam explained. “Tango Lima, or more affectionately known as The Losers, were Delta Forces answer to the Howling Commandos back in WWII. The Commandos were a mixed team from multiple countries that took orders from SSR under the operational control of Colonel Phillips. The Losers were pure US Army Special Ops built under the same basic structure with the same style of missions. After the war, the Losers’ were assigned to the CIA and under operational control of Delta Forces command. The team has been active in one form or another ever since; taking missions from the CIA, the NSA, the JCIC, and the US Army.”

“At least, until 2010.” The images changed again and this time it showed Jensen and his teammates official file photos all marked deceased. “Official files say that Tango Lima were lost in a tragic training accident when their Blackhawk went down.”

One of Natasha’s eyebrows arched up even as her lips turned down slightly in a frown. “That wasn’t the case, however.” It could have been a question, but it wasn’t. 

Sam answered her anyway. “No. After reading through all the data JARVIS was kind enough to dig up for me, it turns out that one of their own had turned traitor and was secretly working for a highly placed CIA Operative code named MAX. MAX was the twin of an AIM Operative who was in charge of a research project for environmentally clean sonic weaponry. Called them Snukes of all damn things.”

This time it was Tony that made a pained noise. When they all looked over at him he grimaced, “I hate snukes. They may be ‘environmentally green’, but they’re highly destructive and not very stable.” With a sigh, Tony reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, “JARVIS, please put together an information packet on snukes for Bucky. If AIM is messing around with them then he needs to be able to identify and possibly disarm them if he runs across one.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Anyway, MAX and his twin were looking for a team of very highly trained operatives, possibly to be the ones to actually use the snukes. I guess AIM had a bunch of guards and foot soldiers, but not a lot in the way of Spec Ops teams; at least, not the way that SHIELD and HYDRA does.”

Clint snorted, “They were looking to up their game.”

Sam nodded. “Essentially? Yes. And they already had one turncoat in The Losers, so they gave the team the opportunity to carry out illegal orders. My guess, if they did, it would have been the perfect blackmail to get them to swear allegiance to AIM. Only…they refused the orders and MAX had the Blackhawk shot down thinking they were on it. Only, they weren’t.”

Suddenly, Tony’s head snapped up and he pointed at Sam. “Aw hell, this is the team that uncovered all the corruption in the CIA and proved their links to AIM, aren’t they?”

Sam nodded and Clint frowned. “Did I hear about this? It sounds familiar…but didn’t they all die in some final battle with AIM forces?”

“It’s a big complicated mess, to be honest, but in the end Tango Lima were able to find solid proof of AIM corruption in the CIA while trying to stop the development and then later the deployment of snukes all across world. The whole mess did end with one of AIM’s island facilities being blown off the map by a detonated snuke. All AIM hands and team Tango Lima were listed as KIA.” Sam smirked and shook his head in admiration. “However, after JARVIS did a bit of digging, he found out that there were at least two survivors.”

The holographic display showed two images; one a bald black man climbing into the driver’s seat of a car, the other showed Jensen cheering in the stands at a girls’ soccer game.

“While there is very little in the way of proof, there is enough to say that both Corporal Jensen and Sergeant Porteous survived the Loser’s dustup with AIM and have since been living off the grid.”

Rhodey frowned, “Or not. I mean, how’d the guy end up working for AIM if he hates them so much that he went to war against them?”

“Actually Colonel,” JARVIS said, “I’ve been looking into that as well. It was actually easier to track both the Corporal and the Sergeant through their families than to find them directly. The Sergeant is still alive and well and in contact with his wife and son. However, about a year or so ago, the Corporal disappeared from even his radar at the same time that the Corporal’s sister and niece disappeared completely.”

Everyone glanced around the table at each other but it was Natasha that voiced their thoughts, “You believe that AIM kidnapped the sister and niece to force compliance out of Corporal Jensen?”

There was a brief pause and then JARVIS said, “Yes, I do.”


End file.
